“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Ever wonder why do we run around, dashing from one meeting to the next, checking off items off an endless ‘to-do’ list, and racing through life to get to the finish line? When did life get so busy that we hardly have the time to enjoy it anymore? And whatever, happened to a world where we had the time to get bored?
Living life to the fullest is actually not about cramming each day to the fullest. It is actually basking in the glory of each of the experiences you engage in, in other words making a conscious effort to be more “mindful” of our experiences. Being mindful means giving our whole attention to an experience – to what we are seeing, feeling, tasting, smelling or hearing – rather than to our thoughts. It means living through our senses and our experience rather than through our minds.
Let’s start today and resolve to enjoy life in the slow lane, here are some tips on how….
- Start by clearing your schedule and going back to basics. Instead of taking all your happiness from the checks on your to-do-list, give yourself the time to enjoy, absorb, deeply cherish and saver those everyday moments in life.
- Instead of investing all of your energy and focus chasing your goals, allow yourself as often as possible to engage in the simple daily tasks or activities that encourage you to slow down.
- Instead of feeling like you are constantly seeking the next best thing and the next great adventure, allow yourself to be the person who values the journey and exploration in the tasks of everyday.
As we begin the weekend, it is the perfect time to slow down and see every moment as an experience. Here are some simple things you can start off with:
- Enjoy a conversation with someone and let it slowly unfold, without worrying about what you have to do next.
- Go for a walk in the park and with the help of your fives senses, see if you can draw your full attention to your surroundings. Allow yourself to become fully immersed in nature.
- Look for the joy in the most simple but amazing things that surround us each day, for example, seeing someone smile, receiving a hug, talking with friends and family etc.
Instead of racing through at full speed from one moment to the next, let’s see if we can appreciate each moment as an experience. And you’ll also discover that this open and alert attitude to your experiences has a time-expanding effect too.
